The two major classes of electronic media formats that present information to viewer of the information are: (1) the television/video format, and (2) the browser/web format. The television/video format actively presents/pushes continually changing information to passive viewers. The browser/web/computer format is passive, requiring a viewer to “pull” information from the storage devices of that media by entering input requests/commands through an input device. In other words, the viewer is required to actively navigate the browser/web/computer format to receive information.
While the television/video format is convenient, requiring no viewer effort, it lacks interactivity. The browser/web/computer format, on the other hand, sits still, is static until a viewer makes an input/request through an input device to request or navigate to certain information. As can be seen, the browser/web/computer format allows for one input/request at a time for one piece of particular information, a procedure that is tedious and tiring.
Referring now to FIG. 1, for browser/web pages 10 wider or longer than display window 12, conventional browsers 14 include vertical scroll arrows 16a and 16b in combination with a vertical scroll bar 16 at the right edge of the browser 14 to move the content up-and-down within the display window 12. Furthermore, horizontal scroll arrows 18a and 18b in combination with a horizontal scroll bar 18 are provided at the bottom edge of the browser 14 to move the content left-and-right within the display window 12.
In operation, the user of a computer may scroll through the content by moving the cursor 20 to one of the scroll bars 16 or 18, pressing down the left key of a mouse and dragging the scroll bar, up, down, left or right, via the mouse. When using the scroll bars 16 or 18, the entire content (top to bottom) is scrolled substantially within the designated dragging area of the display window. Hence, when dragging the scroll bar 16 or 18, a user can gradually, or quickly at the speed of the fingers' dragging motion permits, move to the end of the content by dragging the scroll bar 16 or 18 to a desired point, or to the end of such designated dragging area. Alternately, the user could scroll in incremental steps or distances up, down, left or right within the content by repeatedly click the left key of the mouse on any one of the scroll arrows 16a, 16b, 18a and 18b. As can be appreciated, these approaches are tedious and finger tiring. Moreover, this approach is even more tiresome when using a mouse-pad to operate the scroll arrows 16a, 16b, 18a and 18b and scroll bars 16 and 18.
In order to access and view additional information linked to a particular browser/web/computer-display page through the “links” contained in the page, the viewer must move the cursor to a particular link (for example, by holding down the left button of a computer “mouse” input device and sliding the “mouse” on a “mouse pad”), and “click” (the mouse left button) or push a button of an input device to request that particular information to be displayed on the display screen. Such operation must be performed one-link at a time, while requiring the viewer to know exactly which “link” to “click” for what information, or to explore, experiment, and guess.